trying to get details about what was coming from wikileaks. joining me now is joaquin castro of texas on the house intelligence committee leading the impeachment inquiry. thanks for joining us. have you seen any conclusive proof that trump lied to robert mueller about this? he said he didn t recall, which is kind of a lawyer trick for not answering a question. right. well as you remember, jake, the president refused to go in front of and give live testimony to special counsel bob mueller and submitted written answers to certain questions in the questions oftentimes he would say that he didn t recall. so my mind has been wrapped up in this latest impeachment inquiry but i have to go back and check his responses to see whether he was truthful or not about that. the white house has cited a department of justice policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted. so if democrats conclude that president trump did lie to mueller, i g i guess that woud
there is a situation where receiving information in a passive way from wikileaks may not be a crime. if he simply was made aware of the information in wikileaks, as many people were, that may not be a crime. but no matter what, even if it s not a crime, deceiving the mueller team about it suedly becomes a crime. so there are two different very independent grounds for inquiry here when it comes to the wikileaks. if he did lie to mueller, i think that is the question, what does that mean for the president if he did lie to mueller, to lie to a special investigator? anyone who lies, intentionally lies to a government agent or government investigation is immediately guilty of a special crime, an obstruction of justice-type crime called false statements. so, anytime you have the president if he committed false statements which, by the way, is a very commonly charged crime. because there s some weird human instinct when fbi agents show up at your door everyone tries to
signal what the nature of the investigation is and just how close the ties are to the kremlin. she s alerting the public through this public opinion and essentially saying, listen, mueller s team has been investigating whether there have been ties to somebody, a part of the campaign and ties with russia. the word collusion isn t in the opinion. what is the notion that material lies, material to the actual investigation which means there is an ongoing desire by paul manafort to shield some facts or not be fully cooperative. you have to ask yourself why when he s facing so many decades in prison is he trying to circumvent the right thing? why lie to mueller s team the if he didn t have other nefarious behaviors involved? it s a pattern of lies from paul manafort, michael cohen, michael flynn, george papadopoulos. what s the white house s answer